Monday, May 17, 2010

Mysterious visitor

Last November, acting on advice from the Blogger guru Chuck[display], I installed a flag counter at the end of the Antipodes blog. This amusing gadget has revealed, for example, that I appear to be receiving more and more visits, proportionally, from US readers (over a third, which pleases me greatly).

This morning, the flag counter looked like this:

Here, the Union Jack simply indicates that another British visitor dropped in this morning. It's the information on the right that puzzles me: the presence of a visitor, on Saturday, whose flag was unknown! I've been trying to imagine the possible origin of this mysterious visitor. The most likely explanation is that he/she belongs to one of the lesser known autonomous territories [display Wikipedia list] whose flags have not yet become familiar. Another plausible possibility is that my blog was visited by a citizen of a so-called micronation[display Wikipedia article] such as the celebrated Province of Bumbunga in South Australia, founded in the 1970s by a mad Englishman.

Finally, there are more exotic possibilities. I've been wondering whether Saturday's visitor might have been, say, a Martian, or even an envoy of the Holy Ghost, beamed in on a divine laser, with his unknown flag floating in the photon breeze.

The most frustrating aspect of this mysterious visit to Antipodes is the shocking fact that the rude bugger didn't even leave us a comment.

1 comment:

William,Perhaps the "rude bugger" may have been Prince Leonard from the Hutt River Province (Principality of Hutt River) in Western Australia which you may recall from your time in Perth. The Province was 40 years old this April 2010. They do have a flag, but it's quite likely that it's not 'recognised' on the Google blog? Please see attached link for more information regarding this fascinating 'Province'. http://www.principality-hutt-river.com/.

About Me

After working in various computing jobs, I retired to an old farm property in the Vercors mountain range, on the edge of the French Alps, where I spend my time writing, playing with the Internet and looking out upon the slopes in the company of my dog Fitzroy, admiring wonders created by the Big Bang and Evolution.